Subject:
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Re: Responsible Hunting (was Re: We are what we eat. Or is that "whom we eat?")
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 5 Aug 2000 20:27:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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2958 times
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Christopher Weeks wrote:
> > because you seem to insist on giving animals a level of free will that
> > most of us agree they simply don't have.
>
> I think simple is a good word for it.
>
> > How you can do this with the evidence at hand I have NO idea.
>
> What do you mean by evidence? You mean baseless claims made by lay people? I
> have studied animal as related to human intelligence in a scholarly setting and
> feel like the evidence is largely inconclusive. Also, I have spent thirty
> years closely monitering the way that cats and to a lesser extent other various
> pet-type animals act and think. And after all that, I'm quite certain that
> some other mamals are quite a bit more intelligent than the average person is
> willing in their ignorance to give credit for.
OK, I should have stated "giving SOME animals". I agree with the above, obviously
some animals are quite intelligent. But I certainly don't put deer, fowl, or beef
cattle in their ranks.
> > > > Free will, for
> > > > purposes of this discussion, implies for me an ability to act in defiance • of
> > > > one's drives, such as an ability to remain celibate despite high levels of
> > > > testosterone or a dieter's ability to resist tempting food despite hunger.
> > >
> > > What about when people fail to do so. There are many examples of humans
> > > successfully defying their drives, to be sure. But many of the opposite as
> > > well. Does that color your take on free will, or is the ability to
> > > deny impulse, determined even just once, enough to put an organism over the
> > > threshhold of self-deterministic?
> >
> > You are taking a very small minority and trying to paint the brush over
> > all of the human race
>
> Actually I'm not. If you claim a rule exists, it has to exist for all the
> circumstances that it claims to cover.
Bull. All rules can be broken (except some immutable laws of physics, until we
find better explanations). And you seem to be hinting at that the circumstances
are all humans everywhere, every time. I hint that it is just your frat boys.
> I'm not trying to paint people at all.
>
> > > From where does your surity arise? I agree that humans have biochemical • drives
> > > and sometimes do not act on them.
> >
> > SOMETIMES?!?
>
> My verbiage was chosen for precision not to imply anything beyond what is said.
Sometimes implies a minority of the time. Again, if you only control your sex
drive a minority of the time, I feel sorry for you.
> > If I (or any male) acted on our drives all the time, EVERY • female on
> > the planet with active sexual plumbing would be pregnant at all times.
>
> Not if they didn't let us impregnate them.
Fine, then there'd be a lot more murders - either offensive or defensive.
> > > And I agree that other animals have
> > > biochemical drives and at least typically act on them.
> >
> > Almost always, I would tend to say.
>
> I believe that phrase "at least typically" means "usually or more."
>
> > Oh? So they threw every woman they ran into onto the ground, ripped their • clothes
> > off, and raped them?
>
> I guess our drives are somewhat different Tom. I had been assuming, foolishly
> I see in retrospect, that other men felt the way I do. Which is to say,
> generally horny but not violently so.
Yet your words state otherwise - if you are going to talk about rutting frat boys,
then describe them accurately. YOUR words:
> > > A human
> > > male is not irretrievably forced to mate when driven by testosterone,
> >
> > I knew some guys in college who seemed to have missed that day in the what it
> > means to be human class.
If they are irretrievably FORCED to mate, that sounds like they can't stop having
sex no matter what, leading to sex in the streets, on the sidewalks, etc, etc, or a
lot of women defending themselves. I certainly didn't see that in college.
> > Come on, now. Quit equating RECREATIONAL sex to sex drive -
>
> I never did. Rather than thinking that they are the same, I think that one
> leads to the other. Our sex drive leads us to seek out sex which we enjoy.
>
> > one is for simple enjoyment, the other is hormonal,
>
> So when a creature has sex "for hormonal reasons" (whatever that means) they
> don't enjoy it? Hogwash.
Of course not, but the impetus behind one is quite different than the other.
> > and they are quite different.
> > I would argue that a good 95% or more of male college sex is purely
> > recreational
>
> And hormonal to boot.
Doubtful.
> You seem to think that my equating hormonal drive with recreational sex (which
> I still assert I didn't exactly do) is ludicrous. I happen to think that your
> high-handed seperation of hormones and the pursuit of recreational sex is
> ludicrous. What if I could demonstrate to you that chemically depleting a male
> of testosterone wildly WILDLY decreased their nearly constant desire for sex
> and radically changed the way they looked at sexuality. I do have a bunch of
> informal qualitative research that I can share, I think.
>
> > > > just as
> > > > a human female doesn't have to entice a male when she's at the height of
> > > > estrus, because humans are able to curtail their drives.
> > >
> > > Or is it because estrus is a much weaker drive in humans than in most • species?
> >
> > Only because female humans are able to procreate a large majority of the year,
> > rather than somewhat short to EXTREMELY short parts of the year.
>
> Possibly so. But that doesn't change or deflect my point in the least.
>
> > You seem to think humans are more animal than they are
>
> For the record I don't. :-)
Prove otherwise. Your statements certainly make it seem that you think humans are
simple bags of hormones with no self will at all.
> > - if human males were so weak,
>
> Weak? Are you equating animalness with weakness or are you suggesting that I
> have?
I'm doing no such thing, but not having control over yourself is certainly a
weakness, and you seem to think that humans have far less control than they do.
> > strip clubs wouldn't exist, as the strippers would get tired of
> > being raped repeatedly on stage.
>
> Whatever.
>
> > You must have a VERY low opinion of the human race.
>
> Nope. I have a fairly high opinion of all the various species. At least as
> much as they're quite interesting.
>
> > > Maybe it is that there are more than two states (sentient and not) of
> > > life that account for the differences we see.
> >
> > No, you just want to ignore free will in the definition of sentience,
> > while many others here do not.
>
> Well, to whatever degree accuracy interests you, free will has nothing to do
> with sentience...but that's only if you want to be technically correct. So I
> take this to mean that you reject the notion that there is a spectrum of the
> various intelligence-like attributes, and that a creature is either human-like
> in intelligence or it is animal and wildly inferior?
>
> > > What about the people who knowingly damage themselves through sexuality.
> > > I know people who have had unprotected sex with
> > > partner that they had every reason to expect were infected with a deadly
> virus.
>
> > And they are making a WILLFUL choice to continue the relationship - obvious
>
> In some of the cases. I know that there are people who become aroused and do
> stupid stuff like have unprotected sex. I've done it. It was not a willful
> choice. Chemicals were blocking my normally good sense.
>
> > has gone into their choice, because if they were just rutting, they could just • as
> > easily dump the person and find someone else to rut with.
>
> In other cases you are quite correct and I withdraw the argument. I still
> think it has bearing, but not really the way I promoted it. Thank you.
>
> > MOREso enough to me to make them steak for my dinner. And no amount of • argument
> > will change my mind on that, even if the line is fuzzy for me (I define it on
>
> I believe you and don't expect to change your mind. In fact, the discussion
> wouldn't have come this far if it had been you on the other end.
>
> Chris
--
Tom Stangl
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